


The Best of The Centre

by mareen



Category: The Pretender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-05-15
Updated: 1999-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 13:59:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareen/pseuds/mareen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Did anyone ever wonder who's cutting the DSA's? You'll find out when you meet Ernest Shinkel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best of The Centre

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Tatjana for beta-reading this for me :-) and Raiven for liking this story so much. :-)

He was The Cutter.

When he was a young man, forty-five years ago, all he`d wanted to be was a very well-known cutter of Hollywood movies. How he`d ended up in this place, he couldn`t say. One day, he`d searched for a job because his wife was tired of waiting for his big break in Hollywood, California . . . and he'd found one at the Centre, in Delaware.

There were a lot of people like him here. Stranded, like he was. Not knowing how they really got there. Not knowing how they could leave . . . well, leaving without being in a body bag, that is. Leaving the Centre, alive, was damn near impossible.

Not that he really wanted to leave. He liked the place. He liked his job. It was interesting, thrilling.

Yes, it was even better than Hollywood could have ever been. Hey, Hollywood was . . . well, Hollywood.

The Centre . . . that was Reality.

"Reality" with a capital R.

* * *

Sometimes he liked to call himself "The Man Without A Name". But his real name was Ernest Shinkel, though no one in the Centre seemed to know that anymore. If someone in the Centre had ever known, that person was probably long dead by now. Ernest had become one of the Centre`s shadows.One of the people without a name or known occupation. But that made the place even more secure for him, in a way. After all these years there, he knew one thing for certain: once the people in the Centre got two names, they were as good as dead.

He`d seen them all die, the people with two names.

Catherine Parker, for example. He still didn`t know what she`d seen in that guy, her husband, Mr Parker. She had been such a nice lady. But, you know: two names, dead meat. And there was this really freaky guy, Dr. William Raines. Two names, and he was still . . . but, well . . . you can hardly say that Dr. Raines fits the profile of a living being, can you?

So, after all Ernest knew, having officially no name--he was, in a way, quite healthy. But when he came home at night he was Ernest Shinkel again, married to his high-school girlfriend Martha, who he still loved after all these years.

They never had any children, but that didn't matter, because Ernest was The Cutter. The Centre`s children had become their children, in a way.

* * *

He drove to the Centre every morning at seven o`clock. The guards at the door knew him. They had been told to never ask any questions about that specific man, and now even believed that Ernest must be some kind of Big Boss. Maybe even someone from the Tower itself! What they didn't know was that Ernest`s office was down in SL-26. In the Centre`s basement, if you want to think of it that way. Every morning, he entered his office with his special code, one he`d come up with himself ("I am Ernest"). He was very proud of it!

He sat down in his chair, in front of all his machines, and opened his bag to eat the late breakfast Martha had made for him. Time to look through the first few tapes from yesterday.

There were always a lot.

He was responsible for the whole "Pretender Files", which included all surveillance tapes from SL-27, SL-5, the Tech Rooms, the offices of Mr. Lyle, Miss Parker, Mr. Parker, Sydney, the room of that poor boy Angelo and Jarod`s room, too.

(Though there wasn`t much going on lately, except of the short visits of Miss Parker now and then. She used to go around and touch his things, let her fingers run over them. One day, she`d even took one of the shirts he`d left and smelled it, with a strange look on her face, as if she wished to be somewhere else, somewhere very far away.)

Oh, and he was responsible for the offices of Dr. Raines and that strange lady, Brigitte, too.

All the things he knew about her and Raines and Lyle and Mr. Parker frightened him sometimes, though he should be used to them by now. He even wished he could actually go to Miss Parker or Sydney or even Mr. Broots, to tell them all these things. But he´d signed a contract when he had started this job, and one of the things his mother had taught him was that a real man always kept his promises. And that day, when he was a young man, he`d promised to never tell anyone about the things he knew. So, when he had his first late breakfast every morning, he started to cut the tapes he had from the different places. He cut the things that were "restricted", which meant that they were on his "Black List" he got the day when he started his job. He'd never gotten a new list during the forty-five years he'd worked for the Centre. He supposed that list was still up-to-date.

But . . . on the other hand, sometimes he got the feeling that no one in the Centre even knew that he existed any more.

But who did they think cut the tapes to the way they were when they watched them at last? No machine could do that. He was an artist! He`d nearly made it into Hollywood! So he`d always tried to bring some more drama into the scenes by using shots from different camera perspectives for the final tapes. And he got wonderful tapes by doing that. He only wished, that just once, someone who watched the DSAs would acklowledge his hard work. Hell, he put so much effort into it!

He cut the things from the tapes, the things that no one was supposed to see or hear.

That included the tapes from SL-27 from the last few years. He liked the scenes where Mr. Broots, Sydney and Miss Parker walked around down there, and found all the files.

(He surely did know Miss Parker's first name, but he never said it aloud. He knew what happend to the people with two names. And even if he was the only one who would hear it, if he`d say it out loud, someone had still said it out loud . . . Bad omen. He didn't want her to die. So he didn't say it. Never.)

But he cut them.

'No scenes from SL-27 allowed.' He had that on his "Black List."

Well, okay, he copied the scenes before he cut them, and burned the original versions, just like he copied the good scenes from the tapes that went into the Centre`s DSA library later. But that was just for Martha and himself.

Once a week he would come home with a new movie.

Martha always bought some beer for him, and some chips for herself. They sat down together and watched the "Best of The Centre," all the good things that had happend during the week, restricted or not. They`d always loved the parts with the young boy, Jarod, in them the most. All the years before he ran away, year after year, they`d followed Jarod`s life, how he got older, how he became a man, his life, his Pretends, the sad things, the funny things, the heartbreaking things. When Jarod had met young Miss Parker the first time, they´d both thought it was one of the most heartbreaking scenes ever, though Ernest would have never told Martha--he was a grown man! He'd never cry in front of his wife, for Heaven`s sake!

But it had been so sweet, so lovely.

Two children, made for each other, but reality is against them . . . Everyone tries to seperate them. Will their love survive? Or will the Centre part them forever? It was like Romeo and Juliet. Just real.

Martha had always been a romantic. That first meeting was on one of her "The Best of The Best of The Centre" videos. All of Jarod`s and Miss Parker`s meetings were. Like their kiss. And the bunny incident. And the drama when Miss Parker´s mother was killed ("Poor baby," Martha used to say, every time she watched that scene.)

Ernest himself was more the "action type. Sure, he had the deadly shots on Catherine Parker on one of his "Best of The Best of The Centre" tapes, too. But he had another version. Martha had the "Jarod is trying to get to Miss Parker and Miss Parker is screaming for her mother" scene. Ernest had the clear (and highly restricted) shot of the killer´s face. Oh, he even had a tape with both versions cut together, into a wonderful moving little scene. Sometimes he wished he could send that one to one of the big Hollywood producers to show him what he was capable of as a cutter. But he didn't suppose that was allowed.

Ernest also liked the scenes of Jarod's escape from the Centre. The day he cut that from the tapes--

("No scenes that could undermine the Centre`s integrity in its employee`s eyes," Point Five on his "Black List." And someone escaping through the so highly regarded security system definetly fell under Point Five.)

\--he came home the same day with the cut parts and watched it with Martha, who was dying to know if Jarod would make it out of the Centre safely. But he`d refused to spoil it for her.

Sometimes Ernest was just a little devil.

Afterwards they`d agreed that this had definetely been one of the best episodes ever! Since then, long after that special day, it had been awfully boring at the Centre. With Jarod gone, Martha and he had lost one of their favorite characters. They'd even started to watch the scenes with Dr. Raines in them and those scenes were more ugly than entertaining. Ernest especially hated that specific scene where Dr. Raines was lying in the Centre`s hospital after Sydney shot his oxygen tank--

(That was one of the few thrilling things in the last three years, the question about who shot Mr. Raines.)

\--and that Sister came in to empty his bed pan . . . .

No, after that, Ernest had decided it was about time, to bring a new player into the game.

Himself.

Well, he may have cut the interesting things from the tapes that went into the Centre`s DSA library, but, well, there still were the "The Best of The Centre" tapes he had at home. He copied the interesting parts onto DSAs or other media that suited the situation which they were needed for, and then stored them where Mr. Broots would find them . . . Hey, if there hadn`t been an Ernest Shinkel, Miss Parker still wouldn't have seen the tape of her birth! And that scene had been one of their favorites for years! Martha had labeled the tape with the four hours during which Cathrine Parker had been in labour with the twins "The Birth of a New Generation." The tape had been in their living room cupboard for more than thirty years . . . right beside Martha`s fake Fabergé Eggs.

A real piece of history!

Well, after all, it was something of interest for Miss Parker, too, now. He knew that, because he had seen the surveillance tape of the moment, when she and Sydney and Mr Broots watched her birth.

Yes, Ernest Shinkel had done the right thing. Martha had loved Miss Parker`s reaction to the fact that it was Raines who delivered her. And Ernest hadn't even broken his promise to never tell anyone about the things he knew. Yes, after being the only one who knew everything about Miss Parker`s and Jarod`s pasts for all these years without ever interfering, now he`d become part of the show at last.

That`s what he called Interactive TV.

The whole thing had started to become more and more fun for both of them, he and Martha. In the evening, when he came home, they would discuss the things they could do to help their favorite characters. Ernest would sit down, find the fitting tape, copy it at work, and then store it somewhere where he knew the people in question could find it. And then all they could do was wait until one of them found his or her hint. It was really thrilling.

Now, Martha had even come up with an idea for a new project. She was still a hopeless romantic, it had even become worse the older she got (and she was nearly 75 now).

"Ernest", she`d said, "before we both die and have to leave the kids--" (as she`d one day started to call Miss Parker and Jarod, while Ernest still referred to them by their real names) "--we should do something for them."

"Like what?" he`d asked.

"Like bringing them together. Making them a couple. They should have been a family for a long time now. It's about time, don't you think? They should have children of their own, as long as the kid can still bear some. She`s not getting any younger, you know."

And, sure, she was right, als always. His Martha was a very intelligent woman, much more intelligent than he was, he had to admit.

So their new project had begun to see the day: the plan to get the kids married. And they would work for that. Hard. Especially now, with this Thomas Gates around. He and Martha both had even started to hate flannel by now, thanks to that guy!

Yes, Ernest loved his job. He really did.

Being The Cutter was wonderful.

There was just one question, that bothered him for some time now. Sometimes it even frightened him. That question . . . He couldn't get over it. And maybe he would never get an answer to it untill the day he died.

It was the question every good cutter in his position should ask himself, because the answer could change his life forever.

Was someone cutting the Cutter?

 

Ernest Shinkel always got goosebumps when he thought about that.


End file.
